A number of studies have investigated the cognitive deficits underlying dyslexia and dyscalculia. Yet, it remains unclear as to whether dyslexia and dyscalculia are associated with the common visual perception deficits. The current investigation analyzed cognitive performance in children with dyslexia, dyscalculia, comorbidity, and typically developing subjects. The results showed that children with dyslexia, dyscalculia and comorbidity exhibited common deficits in numerosity processing and visual perception. Furthermore, visual perception deficits accounted for deficits in numerosity processing in all three groups. The results suggest that visual perception deficits are a common cognitive deficit underlying both developmental dyslexia and dyscalculia.

Studies have shown that numerosity‐based arithmetic training can promote arithmetic learning in typically developing children as well as children with developmental dyscalculia (DD), but the cognitive mechanism underlying this training effect remains unclear. The main aim of the current study was to examine the role of visual form perception in arithmetic improvement through an 8‐day numerosity training for DD children. Eighty DD children were selected from four Chinese primary schools. They were randomly divided into the intervention and control groups. The intervention group received training on an apple‐collecting game, whereas the control group received an English dictation task. Children's cognitive and arithmetic performances were assessed before and after training. The results showed that the intervention group showed a significant improvement in arithmetic performance, approximate number system (ANS) acuity, and visual form perception, but not in spatial processing and sentence comprehension. The control group showed no significant improvement in any cognitive ability. Mediation analysis further showed that training‐related improvement in arithmetic performance was fully mediated by the improvement in visual form perception. The results suggest that short‐term numerosity training enhances the arithmetic performance of DD children by improving their visual form perception.